


In Plain Sight

by Lenore



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alley Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon, Anonymous Sex, Bars and Pubs, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Plot What Plot, Porn, Superpowers, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:51:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it happens, Charles does know how it feels to hide who he is. A stranger in a pub sees right through him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my darling [](http://thestarsexist.livejournal.com/profile)[**thestarsexist**](http://thestarsexist.livejournal.com/) for the delightful prompt: _AU where Charles picks up Erik in a bar using his cheesy lines_. This is for Kink Bingo for my Anonymity square.

The problem with frequenting the same pub time and again, Charles had come to see, was that you could literally run out of people to chat up. Such was the case tonight, an overcast Tuesday when business was slow. Only the usual cast of characters had come out to drink. Heterochromia lurked at the bar, casting the occasional glance his way, inviting a renewal of their flirtation. MC1R protein sat drinking at a table with a middle-aged man in a tweed jacket, half-heartedly smiling at his jokes. Charles had no doubt she could be charmed away from her present company.

If he had any interest in that, which he didn’t.

"You should come with me," he’d tried to convince Raven earlier that evening. "It’ll be fun."

She hadn’t looked up from painting her toenails. "It won’t."

He’d taken a _be reasonable_ tone. "What are you going to do if you stay in?"

"Anything is better than watching you embarrass yourself," she said wryly. "Do you even hear the cheesy crap that comes out of your mouth?"

"I’d say it works pretty well." He knew his smile was smarmy. He didn’t care.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Please. We both know you never do anything with any of those girls. You just like knowing that you could."

She hadn’t been wrong, not that Charles had admitted this.

If there was no new challenge to be found, that just left drinking to pass the time. He dropped onto a stool. The barman pulled a pint, and Charles nodded as he lifted his glass. That was when he saw the man sitting by himself at the end of the bar. Hard to believe he’d ever noticed anything else.

The man drank his beer, deliberate and self-contained, with the kind of stillness that came before storms, all edges, razor sharp. It brought to mind the weapons room at Charles’s stepfather’s estate, filled with blades and daggers and foils, deadly potential just waiting to be unleashed. That should have been a neon sign flashing: _Keep out_.

Charles picked up his drink and walked to the end of the bar and slid onto the empty seat next to the stranger.

This was more recklessness than courage. If Charles had truly been a brave man, he would have admitted to Raven during that fraught conversation of theirs the other night that he understood far too well how it felt to hide who you really were, to wear an illusion everywhere you went. He flashed a sideways smile at the stranger and raised his glass. People saw what they wanted to see. If the man didn’t share Charles’s predilections, he’d assume this was merely a prelude to friendly conversation. Charles was a veritable genius at hiding in plain sight.

The man responded with a terse nod, and they drank in silence for a while.

"It’s nice to come across a fellow mutant down at the pub," Charles said to break the ice.

The man turned his head slowly, raising an eyebrow.

"Blue eyes." Charles’s smile was self-satisfied, as it always was when he came to the punch line. He couldn’t help himself. "Before 10,000 years ago, humans all had brown eyes. A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene resulted in a switch of sorts that turned off the ability to create brown eyes. The theory says all blue-eyed people have a common ancestor. It’s very groovy."

The stranger sipped his drink, considering this. "So we have a connection." The look he turned on Charles was unblinking, unnervingly intent, as if he were the one who could peer into the grotto of Charles’s skull.

As if there were no such thing as hiding in plain sight.

 _Mutant and proud_ died on Charles’s lips. The fun of this game had always been to observe as much as possible and only use his power at the last possible moment. He realized now that he was a moment too late. This man saw him, and Charles had no idea how he might react, and the loss of control lurched through him like a shock. For just the briefest second, it occurred to him how arrogant he’d become, but survival instinct quickly overwrote every other consideration. He needed to touch, a mere brush of their hands. Then he could sink inside—so slowly the man wouldn’t even know he was there—he could take charge, smooth over the rough edges.

Before he could act, his wrist slid across the bar, seemingly of its own volition, the man’s hand suddenly on Charles’s watch. "You don’t mind if I check the time?" His fingers pressed into the bones of Charles’s wrist, just shy of hurting, making the power in his hand felt. Charles was not the only one here who craved control.

He countered, reaching out to touch the stranger’s mind. Most people’s thoughts were chaos; Charles had taught himself to ride the waves of randomness. In this mind, though, he found order, purpose, everything wrapped up tightly with a powerful sense of determination. This was a man on a mission.

That intrigued Charles, and he wanted to go deeper, learn more. But a sudden flash of images swamped him: the two of them, naked and sweat-slick and together. _…do you even know what you’re doing alley out back will you follow me…_ The hot shot of desire to Charles’s gut startled him enough that he tumbled out of the man’s thoughts.

The man tipped back the rest of his drink and nodded. "Evening." He headed for the back exit.

Charles hesitated, toying with his glass, caught in the clutches of thrill and fear. The man saw him, all of it. There could be no hiding. Wasn’t that what Charles had been waiting for? He downed his own drink and followed.

He didn’t find anyone out back, much to his disappointment, but then he was being shoved back against the rough wall, arms yanked above his head, seemingly dragged there by his cufflinks. The man stood before him. _He’s done this, without even touching me_. Only then the man _was_ touching him, everywhere, his body pressed the length of Charles’s. _He’s like me,_ Charles thought, dazed, aroused.

"Who are you?"

The man smiled. "I could ask you the same thing. It’s not everyday I have a man in my head." He pushed his hips forward. He was hard too.

The desire to know had driven Charles all his life, but it took a back seat now to the need to feel. The man still held Charles’s wrists above his head, not needing his own hands to do it, putting them to better use, opening their pants, taking their cocks in his fist, stroking them together.

It felt so good, the shimmer of the man’s power, and the hard heat of his body, and the strength of his touch, but knowledge—that was a call that couldn’t be denied for long. He slipped into the man’s thoughts again, needing to discover. _Who are you? Where did you come from?_ The man understood how to parry, Charles had to give him that. The images quickly started up again: their naked, clenched bodies, mouths and cocks, and Charles spread open wide taking it.

"Fuck," Charles gasped, thrusting into the stranger’s grip.

He didn’t just see the pictures; he _felt_ it, all of it, everything the man was doing to him, everything he wanted to do. There was no hope of finding the man’s name. Charles could barely remember his own.

By the time he came, he’d fucked and been fucked in every imaginable way.

Charles’s wrists were released then, and the man stepped away, taking his heat with him. The chilly night air on the wet mess on Charles’s belly made him shiver.

The man leaned in close, still panting, his breath warm against Charles’s cheek. "Until we meet again." And then he was gone.

 _I can hardly wait_ , Charles projected the thought.

The man was already at the end of the alley, his back turned, and in the next second he disappeared from sight around the corner. But Charles knew he was smiling.


End file.
